


The Ruse

by peacockgirl



Series: Season 4 AU Post-Eps [1]
Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Comfort/Angst, F/M, Post-Episode: s04e04, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2150262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacockgirl/pseuds/peacockgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audrey had always been quick on her feet. Post 4x04. An alternate take on how everyone could have found out Lexi's secret. Five characters in five parts. Part 1 - Nathan. Part 2 - Duke. Part 3 - James. Part 4 - Dwight. Part 5 - Everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nathan

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before 4x05 aired and I learned that Lexi was indeed a ruse. I was pretty proud of myself for guessing correctly! Hope you enjoy.

Something was wrong.

That much was clear even if everything else was a blur through the rush of returning memories. Just a moment ago Audrey Parker had walked into the Barn, leaving Haven behind. Just a moment ago Lexi DeWitt had made a leap of faith to return. Now Lexi was still there and so was the Guard, with their guns and their attitude.

At least Nathan was kneeling beside her, coaxing her back to consciousness. Somehow he’d acquired a haircut and a strange sense of calm. Last she’d seen him he’d been nearly hysterical. Now he was so steady it was freaking her out.

“You made it.”

“Hi,” she whispered, unsure what else to say when they had such a large, hostile audience. Was that why he hadn’t pounced on her yet? They’d never been good at getting on the same page about that kind of stuff, but she’d kissed him pretty thoroughly last time she saw him and she figured now was the proper time for a fierce embrace at least.

Instead he turned from her, back towards the Guard – towards Jordan – and returned with a gun.

It took everything within her not to recoil when he grabbed her hand and molded it to the trigger, nudging the barrel under his jacket.

“The Troubles haven’t ended. I know what Howard told you. Killing me’s the only way now.”

Her blood froze like a Trouble, but her soul screamed. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

Then he was finally kissing her but it felt like goodbye and tasted like despair and Lexi was wondering about the handsome stranger who clearly loved whoever she had been and everything was wrong.

When he pulled away his hand tightened over hers, and she was afraid he’d force her to pull the trigger.

“Please. Please, Audrey.” She couldn’t understand why he’d want her to. This wasn’t a show for the Guard. He was begging her to kill him, and he wanted her to listen.

_She wouldn’t._

Audrey had always been quick on her feet. There was no way to reason with Nathan with the Guard all around them. No way to take out the Guard without unacceptable casualties. But Lexi was still in her head, equal parts fascinated and spooked by the drama unfolding around her.

That was easy enough to channel. _“I’m not killing anyone. Certainly not someone I’ve never met before.”_ The southwestern brogue sounded strange in her ears, but it flowed off her tongue effortlessly. “ _And who’s Audrey? My name is Lexi.”_

There was something heart wrenching in how quickly Nathan’s devastation faded to resignation, as if he was used to everything good crumbling from his grasp, but at least he was distracted enough for her to drop the gun.

She let the ensuing ruckus unfold around her, trying to gain her bearings as she hid behind Lexi’s apprehension of the unknown. Strangely it was Dwight who diffused the situation, sending the disgruntled Guard away with an assurance that justice would be done as soon as they could make Audrey remember. There was something chilling in his tone, but his demeanor softened as soon as Jordon slunk away after them.

“I’ll do my best to keep them contained. You take care of her. Try to trigger her memory.”

“ _She’s_ right here,” she sassed, unable to contain herself. Duke smiled, but Nathan remained stone-faced as the cleaner retreated.

Nathan had barely looked at her since she declared she wasn’t Audrey, but the unfamiliar woman with the short dark hair was staring and doing a poor job of hiding it.

“We should get her home,” Nathan said. All Audrey wanted to do was kiss the exhaustion out of his voice.

“Bout that.” Duke scrunched up his face. “Jennifer’s kind of been living above the Gull.”

“I can bunk with you,” the stranger offered, and Audrey caught the way Nathan’s lips quirked upward, just for a second. Duke’s eyes widened, and Audrey had to keep herself from smirking. “I mean, just for the night, and then you can find me another place. Cause Audrey – Lexi – should stay somewhere familiar. In case it helps her remember. It helped me channel the Barn. Least I think it did.”

“Fine with me. Long as Prince Charming here shows me my new place.” She jerked her head towards Nathan, who recoiled at the nickname as if she’d struck him. Duke smirked but the way he studied her made Audrey wonder if he didn’t suspect something.

She waited in the Bronco with Nathan as Jennifer cleared out her stuff, the tension so thick it nearly choked her. “I’m sorry for scaring you back there. Haven’s a complicated place. There’s a lot I could tell you that wouldn’t make much sense. You’re a lot like a woman I used to know.”

Audrey knew Lexi would have some choice words at that, and she should say them to keep up the ruse. But she didn’t have the strength. Nathan’s devastation was too disarming. All she wanted was for Duke and Jennifer to leave so she could get him truly alone and figure out what the hell was going on here.

When she finally followed him up to her apartment he was rambling on about her living arrangements even though getting him to talk about something besides a case was usually like pulling teeth. She stopped in the doorway and waited for him to notice she had paused.

When he finally turned he must have known something was up from the look on her face. “What?”

“How did you think I could kill you?” she asked, dropping Lexi’s voice.

But he didn’t notice. “You don’t have to worry about that right now.”

“I don’t have to worry? Like hell! After everything I did for months trying to keep you safe and then the minute I come back you think I’m going to put a bullet in your chest because that’s what the Guard wants. I didn’t know you were such an idiot.”

He froze, eyes comically wide, but once he blinked again they were filled with such tangible yearning that for a few seconds she forgot to breath. “Audrey?” he whispered.

“Idiot,” she repeated. But she could deny him no longer. She started toward him and he met her halfway just as their reunion should have gone, his arms wrapped tight around her trembling form as he dropped his head against her shoulder and just breathed. He was shaking too, his breath moist and raspy against her neck, and her hands searched for bare skin to convince him this was real in a way only she could.

He only ruined it when he reached for the gun that was no longer in his holster.

“Stop it,” she hissed, grabbing his wrist. “I took the gun when we were in your truck. If you think you’re going to try that every time you see me you’ve got another thing coming.”

He didn’t pull away, just stared down at their hands. “You don’t understand.”

She loosened her grip, skimming her thumb across his soft skin until she heard his breath catch. “You’re right. I don’t. And I know that I need to.” She raised her other hand to his face, gently exploring the sharp rise of his cheekbones, the stubble sprouting on his chin, the warm tears caught in the hollows under his eyes, the expanse of his forehead, and finally the softness of his lips. He stood silent and still under her attention, but his eyes fluttered closed as he savored it like a four course meal.

“Audrey,” he finally breathed, reverent as a prayer.

“I don’t want to hear the truth. Not right now. I just want you.”

His eyes opened and found hers, and she could read the question in them.

“You gonna make me spell it out?” she teased.

He swallowed, realized his voice was gone, and then cleared his throat. “Don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Probably not. But I don’t care.” She was tired of sacrificing everything she wanted for the greater good. That was Audrey’s M.O., but Lexi took what she wanted, whether it was her ex’s wallet or the number of a cute guy at the bar. And right now she wanted to sex up the brooding stud in front of her until he forgot whatever made him so sad.

“I spent months living with an expiration date, thinking I was going to just disappear. Then I spent God knows how long as some lonely, purposeless barmaid. But apparently that isn’t half as bad as whatever made you think me killing you is a good plan. I know we’re both going to have to face that. But right now I just want to feel cherished. I want to take away the pain behind your eyes. I want to make you feel everything you never should have lost in the first place.”

He swallowed again. “We shouldn’t.”

Audrey alone might have been deterred. But Lexi was more comfortable in her own skin than Audrey had ever been. Seduction was a tool of her trade, and Audrey borrowed a few tricks as she slid her body slowly against his, her lips trailing up his neck. “Forget what the town wants,” she purred as he seemed to melt against her. Part of her recognized this wasn’t fair to him; that he might be physically incapable of resisting her after being deprived of sensation for so long. But it hadn’t been fair when he’d expected her to kill him, and this would be a far pleasanter punishment than most she could fathom. “What do _you_ want?”

He hesitated, and for a moment she was afraid he was too far gone for her to reach him.

But then he wrenched himself away and his long hands were framing her face and he was kissing her and she was finally home.

She’d thought the first time they would make love would be tender, tentative, but this was more like a thunderstorm, the passion engulfing them quick and sudden, a violent clashing of sound and light that ended in an eerie calm.

When her mind cleared and her heart stopped pounding she rolled back on top of him, pressing as much of her skin against his as she could manage, from her forehead to her toes. This is what William had meant, about true love that made her ache. She peered down at him, their eyes just centimeters away. “Let’s try this again,” she whispered. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoed. His eyes were bright, as if his body could not deny the wonder of what had just happened even if his mind might try to.

“Told you we’d feel better after that.”

Just as she’d hoped, he couldn’t remain stoic. “Yeah.” There was a spark in his voice, and his lip twitched upward. She grinned down at him, and he got closer to a real smile.

“This is weird.” He reached up to coil a chestnut curl around his finger. “Color looks nice on you though.”

“Nice?” she asked, disgruntled. They’d finally had sex, and she had all of Lexi’s sultriness, and she was still just _nice_?

“Hot,” he conceded, voice delightfully low.

“That’s better.” She nuzzled her nose against his, but pulled back when she felt the unexpected press of metal against flesh. “I have a nose ring,” she whined.

He chuckled. “That will take some getting used to. The Chief definitely wouldn’t approve.”

It had been a joke, but mention of the Chief made it impossible to keep the world at bay. Knowing it was time to face reality, she slid off him but she didn’t go far, laying her head on his chest. His arm came around to hold her to him, sticky and warm and safe. “How long have I been gone?”

“Seven months,” he answered.

“What happened while I was away?”

“You first?” he pleaded.

So she told him about Lexi and the bar, and how a mysterious stranger helped her shatter the illusion and escape. How her memories had returned the moment she woke to his hand on her face and her name on his lips.

In turn he told her about the shootout and its aftermath. The devastation in Haven and the wave of Troubles that followed. Duke’s reemergence in Boston, finding Jennifer there, and the voices she heard from within the Barn. How Howard’s words birthed the only plan he could think of.

“One. Jeremiah Hover. Thirteen years old. Killed by a meteor when he was playing basketball with his father. Two. Emma Caldwell. Went blind and fell down the stairs, breaking her neck. Three. Eli Green. Four. Patrick Denver. Both attacked by seagulls.” The litany of gruesome deaths continued until Audrey couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stop.” She reached out and grabbed his arm, but he didn’t even pause.

“Fourteen. Sally Marigold. Incinerated.”

“I get it. You’re trying to make me feel guilty.”

“You don’t know anything about guilt!” he snarled, pulling away from her. “I couldn’t let you go, and seventeen people died because of my selfishness. Horrible, unnatural deaths that were all my fault. I see them every time I close my eyes, and wherever I go the survivors remind me what I’ve done. I need to set this right. I need to keep anyone else from dying. Killing me is the kindest thing you could do for me, and if you love me at all—”

“If I didn’t we wouldn’t be in this mess,” she snapped, unable to listen to his self-pity.

He froze. The most important truth of her life, and she hated that this was how she’d told him.

The stared at each other, neither sure how to move forward. She’d derailed his train of thought, but now she wasn’t sure what to say either.

“I can’t,” she finally uttered, the finality of that resonating in her soul. “You couldn’t let go of me when I went into the Barn. I can’t let go of you now.”

And she couldn’t. There was a cold logic to his plan she just couldn’t abide. It didn’t matter what Howard said or who had been hurt. Now that she had him, she wasn’t letting him go.

“I can’t go on like this.”

“We’ll find another way.” When he turned from her she pulled him back. “We will,” she swore. “There’s gotta be something in the Archives that can help us. Maybe if we can figure out how and when the Troubles started, we can come up with another way to stop them. It’s not like Howard was particularly trustworthy. He told me I could keep looking for another way to avoid the Barn. Well now I’m going to keep looking.”

“The Guard won’t let you.”

“They will if they think I’m Lexi. They need her to fall in love with you, so they’ll give us space. She’s still in my head. It’ll be easy to pretend. You just have to really sell it, that I’m not back and you’re trying to get close to Lexi.”

He studied her until he abandoned the endeavor with a longsuffering sigh. “I spent months thinking that I’d killed all three of you. And then you came back and I thought it wasn’t you.”

“I’m sorry. I had to. I couldn’t talk to you with the Guard there. And I couldn’t shoot you. But I’m here now. You’re not alone anymore.”

He closed his eyes, but she could still see the tears glistening underneath them. He’d always been her well of strength, no matter how bad things got. Her love had left him dry and empty.

“Everything hurt. But I couldn’t feel any of it.”

She’d change that if it was the last thing she did. She threaded a hand through his hair, running her fingers across his scalp. The response he made was low and keening, his whole body seeking hers even though he didn’t open his eyes. She obliged, her other hand finding his shoulder and tracing a deliberate pattern downward.

“This is my fault. The Barn is my punishment. I should never have let you get in the middle.”

“I loved you too much to let you stop it.”

That had been the problem exactly. In the name of protection they’d spent too long fighting each other to take on the world.

If the first time they made love was like a thunderstorm, the second time was a cleansing rain. She brought his dormant body back to life inch by inch and he proved his adoration with the beautiful words he whispered in her ear as his hands wrote symphonies across her body. She’d never held such power over another person. She’d never wanted so badly to please someone.

He was avid under her hands, but when it was over he was still sad.

“This will only make it harder for the both of us,” he whispered, his nose against her shoulder.

She wanted to find his shirt on the floor, claim it for her own, curl up in his arms and stay there till morning. Instead she sat up and pulled away from him, wrapping the sheet around herself to remove temptation.

She was never allowed any luxuries.

“Get up. Get dressed,” she demanded.

“I’m sorry.”

Everything within her wanted to reach out to him, but she didn’t. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. But you’ve been up here too long. The Guard’ll get suspicious. You need to go downstairs. Have some drinks. Cause a public spectacle. Then come back tomorrow.”

“You really think you can pull this off?” he asked as she watched him dress, silently lamenting every inch of covered skin.

“Long as you don’t give me away.” She fell into Lexi’s cadence almost without effort.

“She’s still in there, huh?”

“Yeah.” It was a little unnerving, sharing headspace with someone else’s personality, but here in Haven she had three instances of unnerving every day before breakfast.

“She’s not gonna … take over … is she?”

“William said on the other side of the door I’d be whoever I most wanted to be. Long as you’re here, I want to be Audrey Parker.”

And if he wasn’t – she hoped that was a switch she could flip. Because she’d never survive Haven without him. But maybe Lexi could manage it.

“I just need some time. I’ll figure this out. If I can’t – next time you ask me to pull the trigger, I’ll do it.”

She waited until the door shut behind him and she could no longer hear his footsteps on the deck before she let herself cry.


	2. Duke

Audrey woke to the smell of Nathan on her sheets, but he wasn’t there. It took a few hazy minutes to remember that she had sent him away. Her body was slightly sore and thoroughly sated, but her mind was another matter entirely. Although Lexi was satisfied with how the night had progressed, Audrey was left unsettled. This was not how their morning after should have gone. There should have been soft touches, chaste kisses, gently teasing words and wide smiles. He should have tried to make pancakes, while she tried to distract him. He should have been _there_.

But she’d been the one to send him away, and it was her identity crisis that had gotten between them. There was no use whining about what couldn’t be changed. She needed to find another solution so they could make up for lost time.

She showered and changed before wandering down to the Gull. Since it was only seven in the morning she expected to find the place abandoned. But Duke sat behind the bar, polishing tumblers.

He looked up when she entered. She caught his split second of shock at her unfamiliar appearance, but it morphed almost immediately into a casual half-smile. “Morning. Sorry if the noise kept you up last night. I took a little break from Haven, and apparently in my absence my brother decided to turn this place into a nightclub.”

He seemed to have accepted Lexi with an ease Nathan was incapable of. The smart move would have been to make some brazen remark about whether his brother was as attractive as he was. It was imperative that the Guard believed she was Lexi. She would not let them put a gun in her hand and make her pull the trigger. The more people who knew the truth, the more opportunities for someone to slip up.

But under Duke’s friendly veneer he looked nearly as worn down as she felt. She didn’t want to add to that or face the consequences when he finally found out the truth. And she really didn’t want to have to pretend here, in her safe space, when she desperately needed a confidant.

If she was going to be Lexi most of the time, she needed a chance to be Audrey every once in a while so she didn’t forget.

So she ditched the innuendo and went for the truth.

“I didn’t know you had a brother. Probably should have realized, since the firstborn son plague didn’t affect you.”

He didn’t startle. His eyes widened as he put down the glass he was holding, but he fixed her with an easy grin. “That’s one hell of a long con, sweetheart.”

She smiled back, knowing immediately that her decision was the right one. She felt slightly better already.

“Best I could come up with on the spot. Too many tempers and guns. There was no way that was going down the way the Guard wanted.”

“I find that good advice to live by, generally.”

It felt so good to laugh again. Duke came around the bar and she met him halfway in a fierce hug. “I’m glad you’re back,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her hair. She didn’t usually allow him such liberties, but she was willing to make an exception just this once. He smelled like contraband and the sea – salt water mixed with some exotic spice.

“Glad to be back.”

“Does Nathan know?” Duke asked as he pulled away. “Wait. I take that back. Of course he does. I knew something was off last night. He made a spectacle of himself, but he didn’t really seem upset. Not the kind of devastated he’d be if you were really gone.”

“Nathan knows,” she confirmed.

“I hope he gave you a proper welcome.”

She felt her cheeks heat at exactly how improper it had been – his warm mouth and curious hands and the way he had arched into her every touch.

“Eww. I didn’t think before I made that statement. Can I just say – finally – but I don’t want any of those details. Ever. We are not girlfriends. We will not be swapping stories of that kind.”

“That’s probably wise,” she said with a chuckle.

“You want some breakfast? Maybe you can clear up a few things that won’t scar me for life.”

“Breakfast would be wonderful.”

She followed him into the kitchen, bringing a bar stool with her so she’d have somewhere to perch as he cracked eggs and began mixing up ingredients. She told him about her time in the bar as Lexi, and how she hadn’t realized anything was odd until a mysterious stranger upended her life by convincing her to jump through some cross-dimensional door.

“He was really there, I think,” she concluded, spinning one of the thick metal rings on her finger. “Everyone else faded with the illusion – the patrons and my co-workers – but William was still there, urging me on. He had to be real.”

“Maybe it was your subconscious, convincing you to hold on to Audrey. Fighting the new personality.”

“I’ve never been able to fight it before. Why wouldn’t my subconscious choose someone familiar – like you or Nathan?”

“I’m flattered, but between the two of us I know who your mind would conjure.”

There was no spite in his tone, but something about his words hurt nonetheless. So she tried for levity, feeling slightly guilty about it the whole time. “I don’t know. If I needed someone to create a compelling and creative argument, you might be my guy. Nathan’s never been great at communicating how he feels.”

“I hope he said something last night. Because it’s been pretty damn obvious to the rest of us.” Duke turned with two plates in his hand and set one down in front of her. Next to a pile of eggs were three fluffy pancakes.

“Oh God,” she moaned, burying her head in her hands and closing her eyes against the shock of it, like she’d just come across a fatal accident. She had seen the haunted look in his eyes, the bowing of his shoulders, the new scars. Last night Nathan’s guilt had practically scalded her. Duke’s gesture tossed it right back in her face.

“What? You haven’t been lying to Nathan all this time about liking pancakes, have you?”

“He was really that bad off?”

Duke peered at her through narrowed eyes. “He was totally off the reservation. But I’m not sure how you got that from my choice of breakfast foods.”

“These are sympathy pancakes.” She had to fight the urge to push them off the table ledge. Duke was not the one who should have made her pancakes this morning. “You prefer waffles. You’ve said so a million times. You made these because he would have. You’re getting along. You’re looking out for him. And for him to let you…” She trailed off with a shudder. So many times she had hoped for her boys to set aside their differences but this was surely too good to be true.

“Maybe my waffle maker just broke.” She frowned, and he avoided her eyes by smothering his plate with syrup and cutting himself a bite. After a few chews he dropped his fork with a clatter. “I was right. These are crap.”

He sighed, running his hand over his hair. “We were friends once, you know. When we were just kids, before the Troubles came and his father started protecting him and my father started raving about how it was our job to help cleanse the town from the damned.”

She hadn’t known that, actually. She knew frightfully little about what drew these men together and tore them apart. She only knew that she loved them both dearly, in different ways, and she couldn’t imagine facing this town without them.

“I’d like to hear some of those stories.”

“Maybe someday. Look, I don’t know what he told you. The truth is I should have realized something was up last night because I’m not sure he would have survived if you were really Lexi. Though he seems determined not to survive you being Audrey and I’ve spent the past month trying to convince him that’s an awful plan, but he won’t listen to reason. I hope you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve because his self-hatred’s not something I’ve got a remedy for. And it kinds of ticks me off that I do care whether he gets himself killed.”

Relief flooded through her that she had an ally in this. “I’m not going to kill him – and that’s my choice, not his. We need to find another way.”

“Any thoughts on how to go about doing that? Cause apparently Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have nothing.” He picked up his fork again and went back to his breakfast, starting with the eggs.

“Not at the moment. Until we figure it out, I need to keep being Lexi. No one else can know about this except you and Nathan.”

“You really think you can pull this off?”

“I have to. Might not be too hard, though. Lexi’s still in there.”

“What do you mean? She’s like, possessing you or something?”

Audrey stared down at Lexi’s iron studded and black tipped fingers. “It’s almost like I’m possessing her. She’s the one who’s supposed to be here this time around.”

“You don’t mean that,” Duke said sternly.

She wished that she didn’t. How many times since she found the scar on her foot had she wished her life was less of a complicated mess? She was a puzzle, not a person. “I guess we’re both parasites. There’s a real Audrey Parker out there, which probably means there’s a real Lexi DeWitt and this body isn’t supposed to be either of them. The only thing that’s actually real is what happened to me in this town. William said when I came back I’d be whoever I most wanted to be, and I wanted to be the one who befriended you and fell in love with Nathan and helped those who couldn’t help themselves. But I still have Lexi’s memories. They don’t feel real, exactly, but they’re there. So’s her personality. I just need to let it take over and make sure I don’t let any of Audrey’s knowledge slip.”

“What if Lexi gets – stronger – the longer she’s here?”

“That’s a risk I need to take.” She looked Duke straight in the eyes and willed herself not to fold. She wished she had a stiff drink. Lexi had always been fond of liquid courage. “Speaking of which, do you happen to need a new bartender?”

“Depends.” Audrey watched the seriousness melt away, leaving behind the mostly above board charming businessman. “Is she any good?”

“The very best in all of Arizona. If all of Arizona is part of a supernatural barn.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep you close. Except it means there’ll be a cop mooning around here all the time. I can’t believe my bar is going to become your secret love nest. I’m gonna say it again – I don’t want to hear about it. No oversharing or I’m raising your rent. And I better not walk in on you two.”

“It won’t. We can’t,” she floundered, shaking her head. “No one else can know I’m not Lexi. Nathan knows, but we can’t act on that.”

“Sure. Good luck with that.”

She snorted at Duke’s obvious skepticism. “Lexi’s not the only one who could use a drink right now.”

“Lucky we’re in a bar, right? Mimosa or Irish coffee? Bloody Mary, maybe?”

“Definitely the coffee.”

Duke left to grab a bottle of Bailey’s, and Audrey used the time to mentally regroup. What if Duke was right? She used to be a pro at ignoring her attraction to Nathan, but that was before she’d gotten a real taste of the power she held over him. Now she knew the shade of his eyes when they were darkened with lust and what was hiding under every stitch of clothing. Even more intoxicating was the way his body could make her forget all of this for a few blissful minutes. Could she really act like none of that had happened, when she desperately wanted it to happen again?

For a while they both nursed their spiked coffee in silence. Audrey was grateful for the way the booze and caffeine steadied her, warm and comforting – but not as warm and comforting as Nathan’s arms would have been. Desperate for a lighter topic, Audrey latched onto the newcomer of their little band.

“So, Jennifer.”

“What about her?” Duke’s response was a little too deliberately nonchalant. The Duke Crocker she’d met when she first came to town would have supplied an immediate physical judgment.

“She’s staying with you on the Rogue.”

“It’s temporary. She’ll need a new place since you’re home.”

“From the look on Nathan’s face when she suggested staying with you he seems to think there’s something else going on.”

“There isn’t – yet.”

“But you’d like there to be,” she pressed.

“You’re awfully pushy this time around.”

“You told me not to overshare my personal life. We didn’t say anything about yours.”

Duke poured a measure of Bailey’s into his empty mug and tossed it back. “What the hell, right?” She smiled encouragingly. She didn’t know Duke could be shy about anything. “First thing Jenn did after I met her was break me out of the hospital. There I was, cuffed to a bed, raving about some Barn and needing to get back to Haven, and instead of running for the hills she flashed an orderly and took me on a road trip. She’s taken everything about this crazy town in stride. We never would have gotten you back if she didn’t figure out how to open that door.”

“We’ll have to figure out how she’s connected to the Barn.”

“Yeah. And whatever we ask of her she’ll do, without reservation. Nathan went a little overboard at first, needing to figure out where you were, and all I wanted to do was protect her. That’s not a natural instinct in me. Crockers look out for themselves. That’s what my old man used to teach me.”

Audrey recognized that protective spark. She’d never had anyone to watch out for until her trouble-prone partner made it clear he did an awful job of taking care of himself. Now she’d do nearly anything to keep him out of harm’s way.

She was glad Duke had found someone to care for like that.

“She thinks I’m a good man. That’s not a popular opinion around here. Probably not a right one, either, but she believes it. And damn if she doesn’t make me want to be that person she sees.”

“I’ve always known you were a good man.”

“I’m not replacing you.”

“Course not. I was never yours to replace.” The words flowed from her tongue without thought, and she only regretted them after she saw the look on Duke’s face. “Sorry, that was rude. Lexi’s kind of a bitch.”

Duke reached for the bottle again, but this time he poured some for the both of them. He raised his mug toward her, and she saw it for the peace offering it was. The mugs clunked with a deeper thud than wine glasses, and Audrey downed the liquor quick. “You were always terrible at these sorts of things. But you’re right. It was always you and Nathan, from the beginning. I knew that since the night you blew me off to catch crooks with your stick in the mud partner. I didn’t always want to accept it. But I knew.”

She couldn’t exactly say that she wished things had turned out differently. Aside from the fact that her love might kill him, she couldn’t fathom wanting to give up what she felt for Nathan. But she couldn’t abandon Duke either. There had been times when he’d held her together when Nathan wasn’t there to do so. She was only sorry she’d given him false hope of anything more. “You’re my friend, Duke. I haven’t always been able to say that about Nathan, but you…”

“Always what a guy wants to hear.” He didn’t sound bitter, exactly, but she still flinched at the sudden coldness in his tone. She hoped this Jennifer could return his feelings, because he deserved someone who could love him unconditionally.

But she didn’t tell him that. It was a little too honest, and he was right – she was awful at this sort of thing. So she tried for levity instead. “The self-preservationist in you should be glad. Loving me’s fairly dangerous these days.”

The joke fell flat. There was little that was funny in their lives at the moment.

“Worth it, though.”

But she thought of the look on Nathan’s face when he’d asked her to kill him, and the echoed devastation when she’d pretended to be Lexi and when she’d kicked him out of bed. Even in their few stolen moments together he hadn’t let joy take hold. “How can any of this be worth it?”

“Look, you don’t get to give up,” Duke said sharply, his vehemence taking hold of her as if he’d grabbed her shoulders. “Maybe Lexi’s a quitter, but Audrey’s not. There’s too much at stake here. I’m gettin’ real tired of having to play the hero. That’s your job, and you used to do it well. You and Nathan. It’s time for you two to get your act together and start putting this place back together, because it’s falling apart without you.”

She was startled to realize how right he was. She was feeling sorry for herself, and that wasn’t something Audrey or Lexi could usually abide. But there was one thing he got wrong.

“You followed me into the Barn.”

“Yeah?” he asked, derailed from his train of thought by her apparent non sequitur. “So?”

“Why?”

Duke hesitated. His breathing seemed particularly deliberate, as if he was using it to calm himself. “Because Nathan asked me to. The Barn was breaking up and he couldn’t go after you himself. I know you’d chosen to go, but you weren’t supposed to die in there.”

“You could have died, or forgotten who you were. And you pretend not to even like Nathan. But you jumped in anyway. You’re not playing at being a hero, Duke. You are a hero.”

“That’s debatable.”

She shook her head. “Not to me. If we’re going to figure this out we’ll need your help. Three of us against the world.”

She glared at him. Nathan had told her more than once that she could be scary when she was riled up, and she wasn’t above using fear to get this point across. If he wasn’t going to let her feel sorry for herself, she wasn’t going to let him hide from who he really was. There was a certain allure to the rouge, yes. But he was far more than that underneath, and she’s seen it time and again.

“We might have to make it four,” Duke conceded. “Jennifer doesn’t like watching from a distance.”

“We can work with that.” She’d have to get to know this Jennifer, make sure she realized what a catch Duke was. But anyone who could get Duke to voice what he’d shied from when Audrey implied it had to be good for him. “One more thing.”

“Shift today starts at four. And you can’t ask for a raise when you haven’t even started yet.”

“Smartass.” But she laughed, and that was surely his intention. “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen when I have to be Lexi all the time. I need you to keep an eye on me. Make sure Audrey’s still in there. All right?”

“I think I can manage that. Now, my new bartender’s got some paperwork to fill out. How about we go to my office? I may just have an embarrassing story or two about Nathan’s misbegotten childhood if it doesn’t take too long.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Really, don’t mention it. But if Lexi wants to keep dressing a bit more provocatively than Audrey, that’s be fine by me.”

She smacked him on the shoulder, but he chuckled and stepped to the side. “Gotta keep that armor a little tarnished.”

As long as he kept wearing it, she wouldn’t mind.


	3. James

Turns out Duke was right. She can’t keep her hands off Nathan.

He comes to the bar every night and she flirts with him. Lexi flirts with anyone with a pretty face and a fat wallet, and he certainly fits those qualifications. What does her in is when he starts to flirt back.

At first it’s a game to inject some levity into their disastrous lives. He blushes at her innuendoes and scandalous anecdotes, and Lexi’s brazenness is an excuse to make all the physical observations Audrey would think but never voice. She knows she makes him uncomfortable, but she can’t stop. Because these few awkward hours every night are her only chance to see him, and she needs that. She’s never gone more than two days in this town without spending time with him and she’s afraid if she spends too many Nathan-free days as Lexi that might be something she can’t come back from.

She doesn’t expect it when two weeks after her return he counters her comment about his cheekbones with one about her rack.

It’s not smooth. But Nathan has never been smooth. He’s usually a gentleman though, and this departure from form leaves her upended and a little turned on as she remembers his large hands on that particular part of her anatomy. She has been teasing him mercilessly. His lips quirk upwards in a hint of a smirk, and she thinks that’s an improvement from all the brooding he’s been doing.

But three more days of that and she can’t take it any longer. She leans close as she slides a bottle toward him, and she knows he is peaking down her blouse. “There’s a storage room in the back,” she whispers huskily, her lips just barely brushing his earlobe, and she watches the shudder go through him. “Meet me there in five.”

She is waiting when he come in and she pounces, her hands around his neck and her tongue down his throat before he can even acknowledge her. He groans but she doesn’t let up. It isn’t fair, that men are drooling over her all day and all she wants is him.

“Audrey,” he tries to say when they break apart, but she covers his mouth with her hand.

“Lexi,” she hisses. She’s not, but no one else can know that. He cannot give her away, and she cannot allow herself to be Audrey when any slipup will mean his death at her hand. She’ll lose herself if it will save him.

But staying away from him is killing her.

She doesn’t know what to make of the look that crosses his handsome features – it could be fear or disappointment. Maybe it’s grief. But she doesn’t like it, so she closes her eyes as she kisses him again and pulls his shirt from the waistband of his pants.

They come together fast and hard against the closet wall, and he doesn’t look at her as they straighten their clothing afterwards. He leaves first, and she prays she will not run into Duke. He will take one look at her swollen lips and mussed hair and _know_.

She never thought having sex with Nathan would be something shameful.

She can’t stop, though. He grows bolder, almost reckless, and she is so damn lonely, so a couple nights a week they sneak off together to dark corners – the storage closet or the cellar or once a bathroom stall. On a few occasions, when the bar is nearly empty and she hasn’t seen anyone with a tattoo all day she pulls him upstairs so they can have sex on a bed. But she still doesn’t let him call her Audrey and she kicks him out as soon as they are through.

He asks her once, after, if she’s still in there, and his tremulous whisper brings tears to her eyes. She nods, and kisses his cheek in the exact same way she had on the day Jess left all those ages ago, and does not touch him again for days.

Even Lexi knows they should be better than this. As much as the woman enjoys the thrill of sneaking around, she’d been intrigued by William’s talk of big love, even though appearances required her to scoff. But she hadn’t understood until she met Nathan. Now she comprehends enough to know that Nathan Wuornos is not the kind of man you fuck in the back of a bar. He’s the kind of man you build a respectable life with, take home to the parents before starting your 2.5 kids and a dog white picket fence American dream. Except she doesn’t have any parents. Couldn’t even adopt a dog because her life had an expiration date. She cannot have a respectable life with Nathan if he is to have any type of life at all.

She curses the Guard every night she crawls into bed alone. She is no closer to solving any of this. They watch her every move, Jordan seemingly lurking behind every corner, so she can’t do any investigating. She hopes he’s asking questions, but she can’t find out, and she is afraid he’s just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

She is certain the Guard knows Nathan comes to visit her. They’ve probably also noticed how they sneak off together. She tells herself they expect Nathan to woo her, that even if they suspect Nathan and Lexi are sleeping together that doesn’t mean she loves him. Tells herself again and again that her lack of self-control will not be the death of him.

Sometimes, after he is gone and she feels cold and empty, she wonders if it would be easier if she was just Lexi. She would not love him, and he would be safe, and she would not be torn in two.

Then she thinks of the way he’d asked if she was still in there, scared and pleading, and Audrey holds on.

Nothing changes for weeks, and then one evening she surveys her customers and sees a familiar face.

“Are we always going to meet like this?” she drawls, trying to hide the thrill that runs through her. Maybe now she’ll finally get some answers.

“When I told you you’d be whoever you most wanted, I didn’t expect you to choose this.” He seems both disappointed and cross, a stark contrast to how calm he’d been in the Barn.

She takes another look around, but she hasn’t seen anyone suspicious today. It’s eight o’clock on a Wednesday, so there are folks in the restaurant but only a few regulars at the bar. She lowers her voice anyway, pitching it so anyone overhearing would probably think she was just getting friendly. “And I didn’t expect someone to put a gun in my hand and tell me I had to kill the one I loved. Had to improvise.”

His obvious shock amuses her, and she laughs throatily. He had told her so many impossible things. It’s nice to finally have the upper hand.

“Thanks for the heads up on that, by the way.”

He frowns. “I was in there with you. Didn’t exactly know what was going on outside.”

“Obviously.” She flashes him a cheeky smile and then turns to get him one of the microbrews he prefers.

“He bothering you?” Nathan’s voice curls around her like smoke, low and dangerous, and she feels it prickle down her neck. She pivots, bottle in hand, to see him towering over William with a glare that makes him seem almost feral. She’s never seen him so jealous. It’s completely unwarranted and a little out of line, but there’s something about his territorialism that she appreciates. At least she no longer has to wonder how he feels about her.

She wants him to know he’s the only one she has eyes for. She smiles at him, and he eases up a little. “Nah. We’ve met before. At this place I used to work. It was a real barn. His name’s William.” She hopes he catches her drift. She’d mentioned the stranger who helped her get home, but she’s not sure she’d told him his name.

“It’s James, actually,” Williams says.

She drops the bottle and it shatters. “I don’t pay you to serve the floor,” Duke scolds, but she can read the concern in his eyes as he approaches from further down the bar. She waves him off. This is not his riddle to deal with. Nathan has gone still, his eyes comically wide, and she know he must have reached the same conclusion she did.

She pushes the largest pieces of glass out of the way with her boot and then pours three shots of expensive whiskey. She downs hers immediately, then watches Nathan and James clink their glasses together before doing the same.

He looks nothing like the young man she’d cradled in her arms after Arla’s rampage. He doesn’t act like him either; James had been timid and unsure, while William’s persistent confidence had saved her life. But there had always been something familiar about that stranger, and in Haven, far crazier things have happened.

James had been in that barn with her, somewhere. And William had been real, when everyone else had faded with her delusion.

“You failed to mention that,” she accuses. He’s clearly amused by the situation now, his blue eyes twinkling, and she realizes that maybe she has seen that particular shade before.

“You had enough trouble accepting who you were. Didn’t think adding myself to the mix was wise.”

“Why do you look different?” she demands.

“You look different,” he counters.

She rolls her eyes and fingers a two-toned curl. “Not really. Different hair. A couple of piercings. You’re unrecognizable.”

“The Barn resurrected me twice. Came with a price the second time around. New look. New personality. New task.”

“You’re the new Agent Howard,” Nathan realizes.

“Something like that. Though you do realize he wasn’t really an agent of anything, right? His first name was Byron. At least, that’s what he liked to pretend it was.”

Her head was spinning so fast she wasn’t sure if another drink would sooth her or make life unbearable. Most of the time it was hard enough to comprehend that she had an adult son, but the thought that he’d gone and gotten himself further enmeshed in this impossible situation was absurd.

Nathan tries to reason this through though, God bless him. “If you’re supposed to be some Barn Guardian, and the Barn is gone…”

“Not a Guardian of the Barn. Guardian of _her_.” He tilts his head toward Audrey. “The Barn’s only important if she goes into it.”

Her headache’s colossal now. Between the noise of the bar, the lack of sleep, and the extra person in her head she’s had near constant migraines since her return. After nearly two months of listening to whining patrons’ non-supernatural problems – because anyone with real Troubles knows to steer clear of Duke Crocker’s bar – she’s gotten rusty and lost all her patience. “Wait a second. Back up a couple of decades. Since you’re the only one who seems to understand how this Barn works, how about you tell us what the hell is going on?”

“We’d have to back up a couple of centuries. This isn’t the place. Or the time.”

“Are you serious? I expect that sort of bullshit from Vince and Dave. Not from you.”

He’s completely unfazed by her aggression, and that’s aggravating in itself. “Was Howard ever forthcoming with answers?”

“Howard wasn’t my son.”

He doesn’t flinch, but Nathan does, before doing a poor job of inconspicuously scanning the bar to see if anyone has overheard her outburst. Duke is watching them with narrowed eyes, but no one else seems to be. “There are answers you need to discover on your own. You’ll never find them hiding here. You’re wasting your talent.”

“I’m keeping your father alive,” she hisses. “If I stop being Lexi, they’ll make me kill him, and that’s not an option. Lexi’s a bartender. I don’t know why she was chosen or how she got stuck in my head. Maybe you do. But here I am.”

“Lucy was a journalist. Sarah was a nurse. You don’t have to be a police officer to help the Troubled. Whatever personality you have, the instinct to help is always there. So come up with an excuse to use it.”

His tone stings, and it’s absurd that she had just been scolded by her own son. But what stings more is the fact that he’s right, and the idea had never occurred to her. Hell, even Duke has been helping with cases in her absence, and he had told her how just last week someone had confused him with a police consultant.

Hell had frozen over, and she’d been too busy hiding and wallowing to notice.

“It’d just be a band-aid,” Nathan says. “She could help all the Troubled by ending this.”

She breathes deeply and exhales through her mouth. She wants to throttle him for thinking he’s coming to her defense by reminding them all that she should kill him. But the need to sooth his guilt is nearly as strong. She cannot bear his self-flagellation. As stubborn as she is, sometimes she is afraid that will wear her down. She wants to give him peace, and he is so certain he will never find it in this life.

“Byron did like to bring that up, didn’t he? But I wasn’t a big fan of that plan when I thought Lucy might come after me. I’d be a pretty awful son to advocate my mother killing my father.”

Relief floods her, leaving her with a foreign emptiness as all her worries are temporarily obscured. She grabs Nathan’s hand and squeezes. His fingers curl around hers, cool and rough. “So there’s another way.”

James smiles enigmatically. “There’s always another way.”

“What is it?” she demands, leaning forward.

“Can’t tell you that, sorry. Being a Guardian comes with a whole lot of rules. But I’m glad you found each other at least. You’ve always been better together than you are apart.”

“Seriously?” Audrey groans.

“Seriously,” James parrots with a wink. “See you around. Hopefully not here.” He claps Nathan on the shoulder. “Dad.” He salutes Audrey across the bar. “Mom.” With a final grin he turns and exits the Gull.

Audrey watches him go. When she looks back at Nathan he is rubbing his shoulder. “I felt that,” he says, his voice low with awe.

It is suddenly too much to deal with out here in the semi-open, where they have already spoken too freely. “Meet me in the back in five,” she tells Nathan.

She goes to the kitchen to grab a broom and when she returns Nathan is gone. Duke corners her while she sweeps up the glass. “Is everything okay? That was a pretty intense discussion. Who was that guy?”

“It’s better than okay. I think. At least it could be.”

“You’re not making much sense, sweetheart.”

But she doesn’t have time to explain. “I have to find Nathan.”

He grabs her arm as she brushes past him. “At least tell me who that was.”

“James,” she whispers, and the wonder of that washes over her anew.

“How, exactly?”

“Later,” she promises. She will tell him everything later, locked in his office, and maybe he will help her make sense of it. But now there is someone else she needs to see, and every minute is precious.

Nathan is waiting for her. She throws herself into his embrace, and everything begins to come into focus when she tucks her head under his chin and he strokes his hand through her hair.

“He’s alive,” he breathes. She’s not sure that’s exactly true; it’s almost certainly not that simple. Howard had told her James was part of the Barn now, and she had never thought to question that meant anything more than being trapped there when it was destroyed. But the relief in Nathan’s voice mends a bit of her soul she hadn’t even realized was damaged. Their son is not dead because of his actions. This is one piece of guilt he no longer has to carry, and she is exceedingly grateful for that.

There is something else she’s grateful for. She tilts her head up and whispers into his skin, “There’s another way.” He shivers, and she is not sure if it’s the contact or the thought of a life beyond this that’s affecting him. But she resolves that they will have that life, together. She will have enough hope for the two of them, if she must.

She wishes they could celebrate properly, with soft words and lingering touches and all the truths they have never expressed. She wants to plan for that future, to lie in his arms and imagine the children that would come next, the way they’d run the police station when the worst crimes they faced were jaywalking and kittens in trees, the wedding vows she would swear to convince him that a life together would be far better than a violent act of penance. She wants pancakes and cuddling and laughter, and she wants them to start tonight and go on fifty years at least.

Instead she stands in the shelter of his arms until too much time has passed, and then she rises on her tiptoes to press her forehead against his. “Don’t give up on me,” she pleads, willing him to listen, but she turns before he opens his eyes, unable to face his answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was obviously written before we discovered who William really was - but I still prefer this theory to canon.


	4. Dwight

The next time Nathan gets a case, he convinces Dwight that he needs a consultant.

It’s odd being in the police station as Lexi. The official story is she has amnesia, so all the officers call her Audrey but marvel at the hoop in her nose and the heavy makeup. But everyone who really knows her at all calls her Lexi, and she has to pretend to be her alias even as acquaintances assume she’s trying to remember. It’s mentally exhausting in a way the Gull wasn’t. There she really was Lexi most of the time, until Nathan sat across from her and she became some weird hybrid of the two. Now everything is an act. It’s impossible not to be Audrey when there’s a Trouble to solve. Her instincts flare to life, and she won’t put Nathan or herself in danger by letting Lexi run the show. But she needs to censor every word that comes out of her mouth – twist her vocabulary and dumb down her theories without losing the gist of them. She needs to throw Nathan off balance and make everyone uncomfortable and pretend to be freaked out when people start growing extra limbs or turning into plants. Plus Lexi always had a good excuse to drown her sorrows but she needs to be sober now. She takes Advil for the migraines, and she still keeps a few night shifts at the Gull because she needs an excuse to talk to Duke and flirt with Nathan and Lexi demands to be let out every once in a while.

It’s also a relief, even if the exhaustion is more acute. There have definitely been days she feared Lexi wasn’t something she could come back from; that one morning she’d wake up and Audrey would be truly lost. She has missed using her mind and chasing theories. They’re not Nathan and Audrey – they can’t be – but it still soothes her to have Nathan at the desk across the room or sitting next to her in the Bronco. In the daylight she can see the shadows on his face that the dim bar hides. Sometimes he is dark and brooding, and other times he follows her around like a new puppy, and it’s obvious to everyone that he’s trying to impress her. But sometimes they are discussing a case, understanding firing between them despite the silly words she’s using, and she imagines a future where they can give up this charade and go back to their real lives.

She’s given up their late night trysts because it makes compartmentalizing in the daytime too hard. She manages to keep her hands off him for a week, trying to think back to times when she admired him from afar but didn’t dare let herself touch. But then she watches him get chewed out by a witness for letting the Troubles continue, and his stoic misery on the drive back to the station eats at her. She can tell he is mortified that she had witnessed this. But she also knows he believes everything that man had said and that guilt pains her almost as much as it pains him. She is the reason for all his crimes.

He doesn’t talk when they get back to his office, just clenches his jaw and taps his pen against the desk as he stares sightlessly at a report.

She has to do something.

“C’mon,” she demands, crossing to him and reaching out to stop the obnoxious tapping. His hand stills when she grabs it, and he drops the pen. Her fingers squeeze his lightly, and then she tugs him toward her. He obeys, a slightly dazed look on his face.

“Where are we going?”

“You’re more tightly wound than a frog in a pond full of gators. It’s distracting.”

His face crinkles at her expression. She rolls her eyes. She doesn’t know where it came from either.

“Whatya gonna do about it?”

She leads him down the hall, scanning for witnesses – but it’s a Saturday, and they’re only there because they’re working a case. She pulls him into a supply closet that Lexi shouldn’t even know exists.

“This isn’t a good—” But his protest dies as she runs her hand over his face. He surely expected her to start with a kiss. Lexi always does, rough and demanding until they’re both gasping for air. But what comes off as Lexi’s ferocity is really Audrey’s desperation. That’s not what she wants to convey right now. So she traces his features lightly, finding something steadying in the way he presses toward her.

When she finally kisses him it’s soft and gentle, her fingers nimble against his neck. Instead of taking she’s just giving, trying to make him feel all the words she can’t say. It would have been hard to be that honest even if Lexi wasn’t between them now. He is the only good thing in her life, and she’s terrified of how she’s already corrupted him. And as much as he craves absolution, she cannot give it to him.

There is a time clock on this game they are playing. She knows there will come a day when his guilt grows stronger than his love for her. He will resent her for her unwillingness to kill him, and then even if they both somehow survive this situation there will be nothing worthwhile left. She fears that even more than losing herself to Lexi, because it’s out of her control.

These kisses are short, sweet, and they spark a warmth within her that’s different from the passion of their other encounters. She pulls back but stays close, glad to see that for a moment he does not look so conflicted.

“Audrey,” he says reverently, but she frowns and shakes her head. It makes everything so much more complicated that sometimes he must call her that at the station. But she can’t let herself get used to it. The ruse gets so much harder the more she switches back and forth.

His disappointment nearly shatters her resolve. Instead she closes her eyes and buries her head in his shoulder, willing him to understand.

She feels him brush the hair away from her face, and his tenderness makes her feel like their roles are reversed and he is the one bringing her skin back to life. She twists her head to look up at him. He isn’t smiling, but he isn’t frowning either. She supposed that is the most she can ask for.

“You shouldn’t listen to that man,” she drawls. “This is a helluva lot more complicated than he knows. Most people make stupid choices when they’re in love.” Lexi’s not supposed to be aware of the situation, but his devotion to her doppelganger is impossible to miss.

“Those choices don’t usually get twenty-seven people killed.”

“You’ve saved more than you’ve lost.” She knows that to be true. There have been times the whole town would have crumbled if they didn’t intervene. Sometimes it’s just a building full of people, or all of Haven’s firstborn sons. Sometimes it’s one person, or a family. But there have been so many instances that the overall tally has to be quite impressive, even if she’s never bothered to keep track.

“I could have stopped some of them from needing saving.”

“Keep it together Wuornos.” Audrey had never had much patience for his self-pity, and this glimmer of her seems to pull him from his spiral.

* * *

Sometimes they sneak away because he needs reassurance. Sometimes it’s because he’s damn sexy when he’s on his game.

Today is one of those times. They’d just finished talking to the ME, and Nathan was making all the right connections even faster than she was. He was anxious to run off after the suspect, but Stan was running plates and they couldn’t do much of anything until they had a direction.

_Couldn’t do much of anything related to the case._

“Nice work, detective.” He must be able to read her thoughts by her tone of voice because she watches him gulp and go very still. She leaves his office and he follows without question.

It’s not quite as tawdry as the bar, she decides, because they’d been heading toward this since the very beginning. She’s always prided herself on her professionalism – even if that mostly stems from the fact she’s never had anything personal worth getting in the way of her job. But she’s no saint, and it’s not like she never had errant fantasies about getting a little frisky in the break room with her studly partner long before she understood how deep the feelings ran between them. She had even hoped they’d get to this point, those few days between their first kiss and her abduction - sneaking away because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They’re attractive people in a high stress environment, and it’s kind of a miracle this never happened before she went away.

Even once Lexi goes, it’s still probably going to happen.

She won’t let things go as far as they did at the Gull, though. The results should be back in a few minutes, after all, and they need to catch this guy before anyone else gets hurt.

They can’t leave any evidence, either. It’s too warm for turtlenecks, and neither of them can pull off a decorative scarf. So she forces herself to be gentle, dragging her lips across his skin but not her teeth. She slips her hand under his shirt not because she wants to take it off but because she wants him to feel it. His blissful sigh almost shatters that resolve.

He is so tall she needs to strain up toward him, but he takes notice of her plight and lifts her effortlessly. She is half aware that they are moving backwards as she wraps her legs around him. This is getting more heated than she anticipated but she can’t bring herself to care. He sets her on a filing cabinet and it makes the angles so much better. He really is a fantastic kisser, which makes no sense since he’s had so little practice, but god does she appreciate it.

By the time she registers the sound of the doorknob turning it’s too late. Nathan freezes as someone clears their throat, but a fierce protectiveness wells up inside her, even as she knows this is her fault. She extracts her hand and her face and peers over Nathan’s shoulder, already running through their possible discoverers and ways to undo the damage. Stan could probably be sworn to secrecy. A few of the other officers might be bribed.

Her heart nearly stops when she see that it’s Dwight.

She pushes Nathan back gently and jumps down to the floor, hiding behind his larger frame for a few seconds while she adjusts her hair and clothing. Then she steps in front of him, pulling at his hand as an entreaty for him to turn around so they can face this together.

Dwight’s face is unreadable, but his voice is stern. “The results are in. When Don said you were in here, I didn’t expect to find you doing that.”

Audrey curses herself. They should have gone to the supply closet instead of the file room. But the station was busy, and she’d thought this would be less suspicious. She should have realized that meant someone could come looking for them.

Trouble was when Nathan started touching her, she’d stopped thinking much of anything.

“This—not—we weren’t—” Nathan stammers completely unhelpfully.

But there is no other explanation for their compromising situation. Dwight isn’t an idiot, and she’s never found an excuse for wrapping her legs around her partner that doesn’t involve some pretty heavy making out. If it were eight months ago she’d crack some awful joke about looking for a file, both men would blush and they’d deliberately forget this ever happened. But times have changed.

Better to rip off the band-aid and face the consequences.

“This is pretty much exactly what it looks like.”

Her voice gives her away. “Audrey?”

She considers lying. He might not believe her, but he might not go to the Guard without proof. Of anyone outside the Guard to catch them in the act Dwight is probably the most dangerous. Jordan visits him often, and though Audrey doesn’t know what is said behind closed doors her public proclamations are pretty self-explanatory. His loyalties have always been a bit of a mystery. He’d just shown up one day, quoting a working relationship with the elder Wuornos that Nathan had never been aware of. He’s been a help again and again, but Audrey also remembers him on Duke’s boat, prepared to steal that box no matter the collateral damage. He isn’t part of the Guard, but they’re connected somehow. They respect his authority in a way they’d never respected Nathan’s, not even when he was making dirty deals to infiltrate them.

Though he never shows any outward antagonism to Nathan that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel it. He’d asked Audrey once if she planned on going into that Barn and hadn’t tried to sway her either way, but the situation in Haven has drastically shifted since that conversation. He’d lost his daughter because of the Troubles, and in his current role his Trouble puts him in danger every single day, especially since the Guard has taken it on themselves to become an armed militia. Even if he holds no ill-will towards Nathan, he might see his death at her hand as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.

But maybe she’s just biased. It grates on her to see Dwight wear Nathan’s badge, work in his office, respond to his title. The man seems competent and fair, and he hadn’t been the one to run Nathan out of town.

Ultimately it’s her exhaustion that makes the decision. The ruse is wearing thin, and in that moment, still flushed from Nathan’s touches, she can’t muster the energy for a convincing Lexi. If she lies he will see right through it, and that will be more justification to report them.

She doesn’t exactly trust him. But she thinks he can be reasoned with.

“Yeah,” she admits, pushing her hair away from her face. “Hi.”

“How long have you been back?”

Again a lie might be fortuitous, but she can’t manage it. “Does it really matter?”

“It’s always been you,” he realizes. Something dangerous creeps into his tone and she hears Nathan stir behind her, ready to get between the two of them if he must. She grabs his arm to steady him before the situation escalates. Nathan wouldn’t feel the hits, but Dwight is a huge man.

“Would you have done any differently to protect someone you loved?” she says, the first full sentence she’d uttered as Audrey in a couple of months sounding foreign to her ears.

“What about your promise to the Guard?” he says, addressing Nathan instead of her. She straightens, wishing she was taller and more imposing, and she reaches back to lay a hand over his heart. She speaks before he can, not wanting to hear his response.

“He intended to keep it. But it’s my decision, not his. And I’ve decided to find another way to end this.”

“And if there is no other way?”

Dwight’s not the only one waiting for an answer. She looks back at Nathan and he is staring at her. She grabs his hand and links their fingers. She has always known this was just a matter of time. She had hoped James would have told them something useful by now, but every time he shows up he is cryptic and entirely unhelpful.

“Then I’ll do what he asks.” They are the hardest words she’s ever had to say.

Nathan actually half smiles at this and she wants to punch him in the arm, but she doesn’t. She turns to Dwight instead. “Please don’t tell the Guard,” she pleads.

After a long moment Dwight nods. “All right. But try to be discrete. If they find out on their own I can’t protect you. Besides, this isn’t acceptable workplace behavior.”

She imagines how the original Chief would have looked if he’d caught them like this. Probably red-faced and scandalized. She can imagine him dragging them out in front of their co-workers to read Nathan the riot act for his indiscretion. But no one would try to kill them for it, and she imagines on some level the senior Wuornos would have been proud of his son for making a move.

Thankful Dwight is less dramatic.

“It won’t happen again,” Nathan promises, the tips of his ears tinged pink.

“It’s probably going to,” she says matter-of-factly after Dwight has left, patting Nathan’s hair down to make him look more presentable before pressing a final kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Indeed it does.


	5. Everyone

She gives herself away by saving his life.

The showdown occurs on Potter’s Field. Justin Flander’s Trouble turns animals vicious, and since he’s furious at Nathan for not stopping the Troubles when the three dogs come barreling towards them Audrey knows exactly where they’re headed. She doesn’t think about Duke’s ability to back her up or the fact the Guard – who always seem to be in the midst of their cases now – only wants Nathan dead if it’s by her hand. She just thinks of him sprawled on the ground, laid out by a well-placed punch he hadn’t seen coming, and the killing machines anxious to savage him. Instinct takes over, and she shoots all three with the precision she learned in Quantico. They all fall with a single shot, and so does her cover.

“You need to stop this,” she commands with Audrey’s authority, looking straight at Justin. “I get that you’re angry, but people have died, and they’ll continue to die if you don’t control it.”

“How many people have died because of what he’s done? They say he kept the Troubles from ending. The town’s gone to hell ever since. I lost a cousin when all the air evaporated in his bedroom. He was just sleeping. Macy couldn’t take it anymore. She just left. But I can’t follow, because anywhere I go _this_ will happen, and there’s nowhere else in the world you can explain this away.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Justin. You’re not wrong. But Nathan didn’t mean for anyone to die. Just like you didn’t.”

“They haven’t killed him yet.” She’s lowered her gun in an attempt to be placating, but her hand tightens on the grip at his threat. Far as she can tell he’s a decent guy, driven to the brink when his girlfriend walked out, but she will shoot him to protect Nathan if she has to.

“I’m not talking about Nathan. The animals don’t just attack who you tell them to. Your anger sets off any in the area. Mrs. Gladstone was mauled by her cats yesterday.”

“Louise? But I didn’t—”

“You didn’t mean to. I know. It was an accident. That happens with the Troubles. We don’t know all the rules, and people get hurt. But once we figure out the rules, we have a choice. You’re not a killer, Justin. But you can become one, if you let your anger consume you. You just want to live a normal life with Macy and the girls, and you can have that. But if you start choosing who lives and who dies, I can’t let you get away with that.”

She prays that he will listen. She can almost feel everyone in that field holding their breath, and she is half afraid some other creature will come bounding down from the horizon. He was a dog trainer, but even the seagulls at the beach had gone nuts when he was upset.

She doesn’t have enough bullets to take down a flock.

“She’d never forgive me if I did this on purpose.”

It’s like a switch has flipped. She knows it’ll be okay now. “Then don’t.” She holsters her gun and inches towards him, arms outstretched. “You can control this. You just need to be calm. Let go of the anger.”

“But I’m still mad.”

“We’re all angry about something. I’m pretty ticked that half the town wants to off my friend. But I’m not shooting you, am I?”

“Maybe you should. I’m dangerous. Louise – she was an innocent. She just lived next door. She loved those damn cats.”

“We can’t change the past. But you have a bright future ahead of you. Dwight can take you someplace safe, away from animals, just until the Troubles are over.”

“Why send him away?” Jordan shouts from behind her, harsh and strident. “You can end the Troubles right now, _Audrey_.”

She spins, training her gun on the raging brunette, who’s got her own shotgun pointed at Nathan where he sits on the ground. It’s the moment after the door all over again, except this time Audrey knows what she’s up against. She’s done hiding.

She hears movement to her left. From the corner of her eye she sees Duke get between Nathan and the Guard, his shotgun cocked and ready. The irony of how far they’ve come isn’t lost on her.

“Guess I’m going to need a new bartender,” he drawls like they’re having a friendly conversation over coffee instead of an armed confrontation, and the reaction is so quintessentially Duke that she smiles despite herself.

“’Fraid so.”

“I just have one little request. Any chance you can hang on to Lexi’s wardrobe?” He’s laying the cad act on a little too think, but she recognizes that he’s trying to diffuse the situation by humanizing them all.

She’s burning all Lexi’s clothes the first chance she gets. But she can’t resist teasing him back. “Maybe I can make a few exceptions.”

She hears Nathan groan behind her. “Can you two not do that in front of me?”

“Nope,” they answer simultaneously. Maybe the pressure and the danger have finally gotten to her. Perhaps it’s the sudden space in her head as she feels Lexi slip away entirely with a sayonara to this hell-hole of a town. Maybe they just have great comedic timing. She starts laughing and finds that she can’t stop.

“You finally cracking up, sweetheart?” Duke asks, and she thinks his concern is genuine and not part of the show they’re putting on.

It feels like it. She wants to laugh until this all goes away. Rebuild the world into a place where this is actually funny. “I may be.”

“Bout damn time. If I were you I’d have been on a plane to Mexico a long time ago.”

“You wouldn’t look nearly this good in Lexi’s clothes.” The thought of that sends her into hysterics again.

“Enough,” Jordan demands, the sound of her gun cocking turning Audrey immediately serious. “You think any of this is funny? The whole town is suffering while you and Crocker have a laugh. Stop stalling!”

“You need to calm down, Jordan.”

“Like hell!” she swears. “You need to end this, and then everyone can go back to their normal lives.”

“I’m not going to kill Nathan,” she says slowly, like she’s explaining a complicated concept to a child. Truth is it’s extraordinarily simple.

“He made us a promise.”

“Yeah, he did. Because he wants to make up for what he’s done. But he shouldn’t have. Because this is my decision, not his. And I’m not going to shoot him.”

She sees the crazy flash in Jordan’s eyes as she chokes up on the gun and takes a step forward. “Someone’s going to die here today.”

Audrey knows she should feel sorry for the woman for being collateral damage in an awful situation. But this bitch is going to have to get through her to get to Nathan. She aims for Jordan’s heart.

“No they’re not.”

They stare each other down, woman scorned and woman loved. Jordan’s radiating such abject misery that the sympathy does start to kick in, but there’s no way in hell Audrey is backing down.

“Shooting Nathan won’t do you any good. Same with shooting me.”

“Might make me feel better.”

But Audrey can tell that she’s caving. She’s frustrated because Audrey is right.

So Audrey turns her attention to the crowd that is watching the standoff in silence. Justin is rapt with attention, and she’s forgotten his kind of trouble could appear from any side at any moment. They need to wrap this up and get him somewhere safe before an army of horseshoe crabs drag them all off, or something equally illogical.

“How many of you could shoot someone you love in cold blood, even for the greater good? Wouldn’t you want to make absolutely sure there wasn’t another way before you took that leap you could never come back from?”

“There is no other way!” Jordan asserted.

“You don’t know that. None of us really understand how any of this works. But there’s someone who does, and they told me there’s another way to end this without any bloodshed.”

“We’re supposed to believe your mystery source?”

“Yes. This has to be my decision. I could be forced into the Barn, but it wouldn’t move unless I told it to. This works the same way. You can’t make me murder him to end the Troubles. It’ll only work if I do it willingly.”

It’s a bluff, but one she believes wholeheartedly. The logic is sound, and it feels right.

“You’re holding the whole town hostage so you and Wuornos can play house,” Jordan spits. It’s becoming increasingly obvious where Nathan has gotten reinforcement for his death wish fixation. She hates that he’s hearing all this again. That there on the ground, he’s probably believing it.

“I just need six months to find another solution.”

The gun trembles in Jordan’s hand. “Are you kidding me? One,” she counters with a sneer.

“Three,” Audrey concedes. It’s not much time, but if they can work together on this in the open it should be enough. They can start by getting James to tell them something useful. “That’s my final offer. You don’t have anything to bargain with. His death only benefits you if it’s by my hand. And you can’t make me.”

She sees the tears Jordan can’t hold back, but she doesn’t let it shake her resolve. She will do anything but this.

“You’re a selfish bitch.”

Maybe it’s true. But she has never wanted anything the way she wants him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jordan commands the other Guardsmen. They move like a pack, slinking away with their tails between their legs.

“Good riddance,” Duke taunts, but he waits until Jordan is probably out of hearing range.

She holsters her gun and reaches out to clasp Duke’s arm, more as a thank you than to grab his attention. The whole confrontation she knew Duke had her back. And more importantly, Nathan’s. “Can you look after Justin? Call Dwight. Make sure he gets someplace safe.”

“Will do.” He smiles, and she sees the relief in it. “That got a little tense there.”

She shrugs. “All’s well that ends well.” There had been a few seconds where she honestly thought Jordan might say screw it all and empty a few rounds in her chest. But the situation’s diffused now, and there’s no use dwelling. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Another one? Guy might think you’re taking advantage, Officer.”

She looks over at Justin, who is staring at the ground, his hands in his jeans pockets. “Do you have any connections that might be able to track down Macy? Least let her know where he is.”

Justin lifts his head, though he doesn’t look at them. She’d known he was listening.

“I just might. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“Now I’ve got a favor for you. Stop stalling. I’m sure his ears are burning.” He pushes her toward Nathan, but there’s no force behind it.

Taking a deep breath, she turns to Nathan. He’s still sitting on the ground but he seems lucid. His eyes follow her, and they’re brimming with something she can’t identify. The adrenaline starts to fade and she is so over this day.

“You okay, partner?”

She offers him a hand and helps pull him up. She is shocked when his arms come around her so tightly they press the air from her lungs. But she doesn’t protest. She sinks into his trembling body. She had honestly worried, when those dogs came running, that one of them would get to him before she could stop it.

“You’re back,” he whispers.

“Yep. Cat’s out of the bag now.” It’s only after she says it she realizes the irony given their latest case. “Wow. Poor choice of words. That was not intentional, I swear,” she says with a laugh.

“Cause normally your jokes are so much better than that.”

“Hey.” She pinches his arm without thinking about it and is shocked by the vehemence of his “owww” and the way he twitches away from her.

“Geez. I’m so sorry.” She rubs at the spot, trying to undo the damage because she’s never meant to cause him pain. When he covers her hand with his own she freezes.

“They could have shot you.” His voice is gruff, and she realizes he hadn’t been worried about himself. “You didn’t have to blow your cover for me.”

“Wasn’t going to let you get turned into dog food. No one touches you on my watch.” She reaches up to brush a twig out of his hair and lingers by his temple, exploring slowly. “Except me.”

She watches a blush creep up his neck and feels an answering one in her cheeks. This wasn’t the place for this. “We should get back to the station. Lots of paperwork to do.” She heads back to the Bronco and he falls into step behind her.

* * *

There is lots of paperwork to do. Killing those dogs had saved Nathan’s life, but they’d also been someone’s pets (three people’s actually) and she’d discharged her weapon in the line of duty. She works on that while Nathan writes an official and a doctored report about the whole situation.

But she can feel his eyes on her. Occasionally she looks up and catches him staring, and instead of glancing away or stammering some excuse he just keeps looking, something raw and vulnerable in his gaze that she doesn’t know how to deal with here in their office, where they’re supposed to be professional. They’ve been alone together plenty of times since she’s been back, but except for that first night it’s always been under the guise of Lexi. She used to be comfortable in Nathan’s presence, but everything is different now. He’s seen every part of her – but she’s also gotten used to hiding. She’s not sure how to get back to what they used to be, back before the Hunter.

“Something on your mind?” she asks the third time she catches him. He blinks as if trying to clear his head from a daze.

“I’ve missed you.”

It’s absolutely sincere, but something makes her press for more. “Why?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, and her stomach drops. All the fears that have plagued her every time she pushed Lexi at him come roaring back. What if she has broken them beyond repair? What if they can’t be Nathan and Audrey anymore? Or what if they can only be partners? Maybe it’s Lexi that excited him, and he doesn’t know how to tell her that. They’ll go back to being platonic, and she’ll go slowly insane, even with only one person in her head.

But his voice cuts through her inner freak-out. “Because I love you.” He is quiet but sure, and she starts to relax. Long as that’s still true, she can figure this out.

“Love you too.” He grins at her, and she knows the paperwork’s a lost cause. “What are we even doing here? Paperwork’ll keep.”

“Want me to take you home?” he asks.

“No,” she answers, and his face falls before she can continue. “Can we go to your place?”

“Sure.” It’s unfamiliar territory, and she can tell it throws him too. But Lexi has taken Nathan to the Gull, and she doesn’t want to repeat that tonight. This is their chance for a fresh start, and she doesn’t want to muddy the waters.

They don’t say much on the ride over, but she reaches across the gears to grab one of his hands and she trails her thumb across the back of his wrist, the warm, soft skin steadying her. Like a schoolgirl with a crush she’s so nervous it’s maddening.

She doesn’t relinquish his hand until he parks. He opens the door for her and she follows. She’s never been inside his house before; boundaries have always been looser on her end than his. It’s a cozy little bungalow with a tidy yard. She can picture him finding the upkeep soothing, pushing a mower across the grass, sweat he doesn’t feel making his t-shirt stick to him in all the right places. There’s a retriever at her feet as she sits on the porch, admiring the view.

 _She is getting ahead of herself_.

The inside is slightly less neat. The décor screams bachelor pad, though she supposes that’s more promising than crazy hermit den. There are framed prints on the wall – trees with bright autumn leaves, a rocky shoreline on a beautifully clear day, the sun setting over the ocean. She pauses to look at one more closely and he notices her interest.

“It’s the color,” he explains, and she understands. He’d told her once how his other senses had sharpened to compensate for what he lacked.

“They’re beautiful.”

So is he, even though there’s a bruise rising on his face where Justin had slugged him. They are finally truly alone together, no alternate personalities or professional responsibilities between them and she’s at a loss. Lexi would know how to handle this situation – but Lexi is gone. There is no trace of her thought patterns or preferences in her head anymore. Even the memories of what they had done while sharing a body are a bit faded.

That is certainly a relief, but there’s an emptiness too she had not anticipated. For months she’s had someone to take over when she’s unsure of a situation, but she’s on her own now.

“What happens now?” he asks. On one hand it’s a relief he’s just as uncertain as she is. On the other this wouldn’t be a bad time for him to start taking charge.

Then her stomach rumbles and provides the answer. “Can you make dinner?”

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Pancakes?” It’s the very first thing that comes to mind. After she says it, she realizes they really sound delightful.

His smile is slight, but she hears the good humor in his voice.

“For dinner?”

“That’s never stopped you.”

“True.” He chuckles. “Pancakes it is.”

Neither of them move. She’s made a gesture and he recognizes it but they’re still stuck at what happens next. Lexi has showed her how to be bold but it’s that boldness that’s between them now.

“I’m going to go clean up,” she finally says. He nods, and she stands on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. As she turns to go, she sees him cover the area her lips touched with his hand.

She doesn’t know where the bathroom is, but there are only a few possibilities, and she appreciates the excuse to explore. First thing she does once she finds it is toss the nose ring in the toilet. She takes off Lexi’s rings and ear cuffs, placing them on the top of the sink, then goes to work on her makeup. It’s a challenge when all Nathan has is a bar of soap, but she manages, staining one of his light blue washcloths black by the time she is through. He doesn’t have anything that will strip off the nail polish, so that will have to wait until she’s back at her apartment. There’s nothing she can do about her hair – she’ll need to go to a salon for a dye and a cut. She throws it up in a messy bun and examines herself in the mirror. It’s almost herself she sees.

She leaves the bathroom quietly and continues down the hallway to Nathan’s bedroom. She is tired of Lexi’s tight, revealing clothing. Plus it’s cold in Nathan’s house – which he probably doesn’t realize. She tries not to focus on his small, unmade bed and instead riles through his bureau, finding a gray Haven PD sweatshirt. She swaps her tank top for the soft, worn fabric, pleased by the way the sleeves go well past her wrists and it smells like him. Leaving her boots at his bedside, she straightens her hair and wanders back to the kitchen.

She watches him work while his back in turned, humming something unrecognizable under his breath as he flips the pancakes. She thinks she is being discrete, but when he carries a plate to the kitchen he doesn’t startle at all at her presence.

He does stop once he gets a good look at her, a radiant smile transforming his whole face into something angelic. She’s never seen him nearly this happy, and the magnitude of that is overwhelming.

“Better?” she asks shyly, not quite sure how to handle the force of his admiration.

“Much.”

“You sure? Lexi was hot.”

“Couldn’t hold a candle to you.” The praise makes her uncomfortable, but she doesn’t want him to stop either. Once again, it’s that kind of first crush nonsense she never had time for.

No time now either, but it’s happening.

“See you raided my closet.”

“I did learn snooping in the FBI. Plus it’s cold in here.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize—”

She cuts him off with a hand to the chest before he can apologize any further. “It’s fine. But you should really put the heat on. For your own good as well as mine.”

He swallows, staring down at her palm spread over his heart. She can feel it pounding, and she thinks maybe she can warm them both up without the heat.

But he recovers, and the moment passes. “You should start eating. I’ll be right back.”

By the time he returns she’s discovered they’re chocolate chip pancakes, and consumed half of them with delight.

He brings himself a plate and sits across from her at his kitchen table, which is too big for someone who lives alone, as if it’s just been waiting for her to join him. “How are they?” he asks, and she can tell he’s emotionally invested in her answer.

She considers teasing him, but figures she’s put him through enough and goes right for honesty instead. “They’re delicious,” she says sincerely. “Though I’m surprised at you. You just happened to have a bag of chocolate chips lying around?”

“I bought them after I told you about Lucy. Thought they might come in handy.” He rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Hope chocolate doesn’t go bad.”

Sometimes she forgets it hasn’t really been that long – especially not for her, when seven months passed like a few days lived by someone else. But that month and a half between her abduction and the Barn had stretched like an eternity, every moment wretched. It’s strange to think they had come close enough to what they are now for Nathan to buy something for a post hook-up snack, when instead they’d barely spoke civilly to each other for weeks.

She will not let them mess this up again.

“Tastes fine to me. Better than fine.” Their eyes meet, but his gaze is so open and adoring she can’t hold it and looks away first. She knows how to sniff out a suspect or calm down someone who’s Troubled, but what he’s offering her now is uncharted territory.

She doesn’t know what else to say, so most of the meal passes in silence. He cooks them both another batch and they’re perfection right off the griddle, the chocolate chips warm and melted. The food sharpens her concentration, but as the temperature rises she gets drowsy. It’s been so long since she could simply exist without anyone expecting anything of her. It’s nice to be comfortable, surrounded by him.

When the batter is gone and their plates are cleared she knows what comes next, but not how to get there, so she offers to help with the dishes.

She washes and he dries, and she finally speaks of the day they’ve had. “Now that I’m done with Lexi for good, maybe James will have something useful to tell us. We need some kind of lead to start with.”

“We should invite him to dinner.”

“Interesting interrogation tactic.”

“Not just to pump him for information. Because he’s our son.”

“Family dinner,” she says, catching his drift, but then she laughs, because it’s positively absurd, this whole entire situation and how entwined their lives are in utterly impossible ways.

“What?” he asks with narrowed eyes.

“Our son looks older than both of us. He had his body swapped and he’s my Barn Guardian, and you slept with a former version of me in the 1950’s. It’s just insane. Maybe I am cracking up.”

He smiles at that, and this time it’s her turn to ask, “What?”

“Before today, I can’t remember the last time I heard you laugh.”

She can’t remember either.

“The dishes can wait,” he tells her, putting down the dishcloth. He places his hands on her waist and pulls her towards him, looking down at her in a way that sets the butterflies in her stomach into hysterics. Then he kisses her, and it’s the stuff of fairytales, every movement of his lips designed to convince her that she’s finally home. She reaches up to cup his neck and pull him even closer, but as soon as her skin brushes his he flinches away.

“What did I do?” she asks, horrorstruck, but he doesn’t let go of her waist.

“Your hands are wet,” he tells her, and sure enough they are still covered in suds from the dish washing. “I can feel it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t ever have to be sorry for making me feel.”

Maybe if he’d said something like that to her a year ago they’d have avoided all this mess. She drops her hands back to his neck, playing with the hair there and deliberately wiping the moisture across his skin.

“I am sorry for breaking up that moment.”

“We have time now for lots of moments. Come with me?”

He holds his hand out and she takes it. Then he leads her back into his bedroom. There’s no desperate scramble; she just follows, anticipation coiling in her stomach. He is so calm and that steadies her.

“Sorry about the mess. Wasn’t expecting company.” She absolutely doesn’t care that his bed is unmade and there is laundry on the floor. It makes the pile of her own clothing less conspicuous.

The bed will be far messier when they are through.

“You’ve got some now,” she cracks, sass always coming easier than sentiment. He smiles, his arms coming down to rest on her shoulders and clasp behind her head. She steps closer, pressing her hands to his waist. She itches to lift his shirt and really touch him there but she doesn’t, sensing his need to wait. He leans down toward her, pressing his forehead to hers, and he is so close she can count his eyelashes.

“I love you Audrey.” There is something so heartbreakingly tentative in his voice. All his actions the past hour prove that it’s not the sentiment he’s unsure of. He loves her, and there’s no way she could doubt that. It’s her identity he’s afraid she’ll reject. Even though the ruse is over, some part of him expects her to push him away, because that’s what she’s done, again and again.

“I’ve made a mess of us. I’m sorry.” She feels the tears coursing down her cheeks and she doesn’t try to stop them. He deserves to know that she mourns for what they’ve lost – months and months of might have beens.

He brushes them away clumsily, pressing just a little too hard, and when he finished he stares at the liquid glistening on his skin. Warm, just like her. “It’s okay. We’ll fix it.” He smiles softly, and she can find no trace of sadness in it. “We’re good at fixing things.”

“I love you Nathan,” she swears, and she’s never meant anything so sincerely. She surges up to kiss him and he meets her halfway, tender but with an undercurrent of need strong enough she knows there will be no more delays.

They’ve had sex more times than she’s bothered to count, but they haven’t made love since the night she returned. Most of the time they hadn’t even taken off many clothes, and she doesn’t know how much he’d actually been able to feel. That thought shames her now, and she desperately wants this to be different. She’d been trying so hard to hold on to herself, and she’d needed his touch to anchor her. She’d gotten caught up in lust and satisfaction, all the trades Lexi plied in. But she wants this time to be for him, to make up for all he’s been through on her behalf. She wants him to feel every second, but she wants it to mean more than just physical pleasure.

Because she is truly Audrey again. And the strongest part of Audrey is not her need to help the Troubled or any sort of self-preservation – it’s her love for him. She’s not sure if that’s a hiccup in the universe’s design or how this was always supposed to happen but she doesn’t care. She’s not willing to change.

She slides her hands under his henley, rubbing circles into his sides. He runs a hand up her back, underneath the sweatshirt, searching for the clasp to her bra. But he finds only skin.

“Figured I’d make it a little easier on you.” She tilts her head toward the pile she’d left on his floor, her black bra on top of her gray tank top.

His eyes brighten, and he shows her exactly how much he appreciates the gesture, his large, warm hands teasing her, massaging the sensitive flesh without obstruction. She moans, ready for him to take her right then.

But there is so much more to be enjoyed. They undress each other slowly, and she pouts just a little to hear him chuckle, the warm, rich sound rippling over her. She touches every inch of him she can reach, stroking and tickling and sometimes scraping, cataloging the way each action makes him react so she can spend a lifetime doing it again in the way that pleases him most. And she tastes, over and over. No matter where their lips drift they keep finding each other again.

When they are finally both bare and flush with need he lifts her effortlessly, cradling her to him, and she covers his heart with her hand and feels it pound. He sets her carefully on the bed and then follows, hovering above her, their bodies separated by mere inches. He gazes down at her, smiling, and her soul answers with a grin of her own. There is only one thing missing in this moment.

“Say my name. Please,” she whispers, reaching up to touch his face. “I won’t stop you ever again.” She has always forbidden him from saying it before, cutting him off with tongue and teeth. Instead of calling her Lexi he had mostly stayed silent.

“Audrey,” he breathes, the word itself a caress, and then he ducks his head to kiss her. The rest of his body follows a few seconds later, and she closes her eyes and moans at the bliss of him filling her.

“Oh god, Audrey.” He says it over and over like a beautiful lullaby to her tired soul, the cadence of his voice synchronizing with his movements to envelop her and bear her away on an ocean of bliss.

* * *

After, as the euphoria fades, she realizes the next gift she’s been given – neither of them have to leave.

From her sprawled position she can see his navy henley on the floor where she’d tossed it. The idea of moving holds little appeal, but she’s yearned for this prize since their first time together, and finally it’s feasible. She coaxes herself out of bed, determined to do this quick and snuggle back against him.

She isn’t quick enough. “Don’t go,” he pleads.

She freezes and turns on him with wide guilty eyes. She thought she had assuaged such fears. “I’m not going anywhere,” she assures him. She snatches the shirt and tries to throw it on quickly, but it’s inside out and it takes her nearly a minute to manage it as precious seconds tick by that leave him wondering.

When she finally clambers back she pushes him down from his sitting position and rests her head on his chest. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do that.”

“Wear my shirt?” he asks quizzically.

“Yep.”

“Well Parker, if you had such a hankering for my wardrobe you just could have asked.”

She swats him for his cheek and then presses herself closer, drawing her leg up his.

“Don’t you find this sexy?” She tugs at the collar. With the buttons open the neckline falls halfway down her shoulder.

“Find you sexier without it,” he admits, still looking perplexed.

“Fair enough,” she concedes with a laugh. “But I like it.”

“Don’t need it though.”

“I might. It could get cold in here overnight, and some of us notice such things.”

She knew he’d keep her warm. But she’s never been comfortable with the vulnerability of sleeping naked. Maybe because it is easier to make a quick getaway when the regret sinks in if she is already halfway clothed. Claire would probably say it was something far deeper than that, and she’s not sure if it’s Audrey’s demons or her original self’s demons or some combination of the two. Tonight she doesn’t care. It’s not Nathan she doesn’t trust. This is her own failing, and she’s sure he’ll break her of it one day. But tonight it feels good to be wrapped in something he’s worn, soft and smelling of him, a token of this hard earned victory.

“It’s in the way,” he mutters, and she laughs at his petulance. She certainly won’t mind when he takes it off. But she will put it on again afterward.

“I think you’ll manage.”

And he does. He shifts them so her back is pressed against his chest and one hand drifts under the shirt, gently teasing. He takes advantage of her exposed shoulder, pressing wet, open mouthed kisses across her collarbone.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs against her skin.

“I’m not going anywhere tonight,” she answers. There is nothing that could make her give up this night, not even if Vince Teagues came knocking on Nathan’s door.

“Not just tonight. Move in.”

She’s glad Nathan can’t see the panic that’s surely showing on her face. She tries to keep her voice steady. “Isn’t that a little fast?”

“Only because we’ve wasted so much time going slow. I don’t want to waste anymore. If we only have three months—”

She turns in his arms. “We have more than three months! I bet James will start telling us stuff now that I’m not pretending to be Lexi. If we don’t have it figured out by the Guard’s deadline I’ll just get an extension. They can’t make me kill you. I won’t do it!”

“Okay.” He starts at her scalp and runs his hand through her hair. He’d snapped the tie holding her bun a long time ago. “But either of us could die tomorrow. We could get taken out by a Trouble or hit by a bus. Haven’s not an easy place. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I know I want to spend all of it with you. I don’t want to waste time worrying about whose place we’re going to stay at or always making sure we have a spare set of clothes for work. I just want to make love to you every night, wake up with you in my arms, eat breakfast together and know, whatever the day throws at us, that it’ll end with us side by side.”

Audrey is a classic commitment-phobe, and part of her wants to protest on principal. This is drastically soon for such a huge step. They’d never been on a date, for christ’s sake. But truth be told her and Nathan have been preparing for this day since the start of their partnership. She knows his bad habits and his insecurities. Knows how to deal with him when he is cranky or depressed. Knows how he takes his coffee and the foods he can’t stand, as well as the food he loves – though almost everyone knows that. Probably if they’d gotten together under less extreme circumstances she would have resisted for a while – though he surely would have worn her down. But she has spent the past few months in bed alone, yearning for him, and she knows there is nothing preferable in the solitary life she’s been living for so long. He painted such a beautiful picture, and she wants that for herself – for him – for both of them. They deserve it, all the hell they’ve been through.

Her hand drifts across his chest. She will never get tired of touching him. “I’m not going to cancel my lease just yet. But I’ll bring some of my stuff over tomorrow. We can see how it goes.”

“It’s gonna go great.” His enthusiasm is almost boyish, and she’s never seen this side of him. She will learn how to draw it out.

“Mighty confident there, Wuornos. I’m warning you, I’m not a useful guest. At all. I don’t cook. I don’t clean.”

“You can do the grocery shopping.”

“Have you seen the contents of my refrigerator? That’s probably a bad idea if we actually want to eat. And considering how many calories we’re gonna burn on a regular basis, we probably need to replace them.”

“Well there goes my plan for a free housekeeper,” he deadpans, and she giggles and presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“I can think of a couple ways to earn my keep. Test your coffee. Make sure your showers aren’t too hot. Keep your bed warm.”

“I like the last two.” His voice is so low and sexy it gets her ready for the next round. But she’d seen the way his eyes had widened slightly at her last suggestion, and now she’s curious.

“You can feel my body heat, can’t you?”                                                                       

He nods. “I don’t know how to describe it. I’ve been numb for so long and now—. It’s like I’ve got my own personal space heater.”

She cannot imagine that numbness and the despair it must spark in him, but she’ll fight it off tooth and nail any way she can.

“Thought of another perk,” she purrs. “You might be able to take fewer trips to the hospital because I can check you for wounds myself.”

He pretends to consider this. “You are prettier than the nurses,” he concludes.

“Oh. We could play nurse if you like.” She grabs his wrist as if she is taking his pulse, but instead of counting she just marvels at the way it beats under her fingers. “You can be a difficult patient. Or my boss. You’d make a pretty sexy doctor.” Now that she has the image in her head it’s hard to dislodge, the white coat, skillful hands, and compassionate bedside manner. If not for the Troubles and the Wuornos legacy of law enforcement it’s something she could see him doing.

“I don’t want to play anything,” he says seriously. “I just want to be Nathan and Audrey.”

She rues her choice of words. She hadn’t been thinking. But she supposes that’s good. Lexi is not haunting her. She’s already begun to forget.

“Parker and Wuornos,” she adds. Those are the people they’ve always been, even more so than Nathan and Audrey. “Partners. Detectives. Haven-savers.”

“Friends.”

“Best friends,” she amends.

“Lovers.”

“Most likely to get caught making out in the police station.”

He snorts. “Most likely to make my father roll over in his grave for inappropriate workplace behavior.”

“Most likely to say I love you with pancakes.”

“Stay,” he repeats, so earnest and absolutely perfect.

“Convince me,” she counters.

He does an admirable job trying, but it’s the morning that seals the deal. She watches the awe and joy wash over him as he wakes tangled in her arms, unbridled happiness from a man who has known far too much pain. She knows then, come hell or high water, she will do absolutely anything in her power to never have to leave.


End file.
